FBI agent accidentally reveals own 8chan posts

[oceanplexian]

What's interesting is that this poster, supposedly an FBI agent, is pushing an anti-Russia narrative in his other posts. Kind of ironic that the same organization that claims Russia is manipulating social media is doing exactly the same thing themselves.

[luckylion]

I've rarely heard an argument from anyone that manipulating people, influencing election outcomes etc via social media is bad. It's bad because the Russians are doing it to them - it's okay if they are doing it to others. The same goes for military invasions under false pretenses, corrupting politicians, large scale spying and whatever else you can think off. Very few people have a moral problem with the actions, they have a "hey, this doesn't benefit me" problem.

[JamesBarney]

Sure they both fall under the category "trying to influence someone through social media". But so does a press release put out over Facebook, and lot of other completely innocuous actions.

If we found out the FBI was systematically spending lots of money to influence our elections people would be pissed.

[sparkling]

But remember kids, "the russians" interfered with the elction.

[tbirdz]

How can we differentiate between this agent making these postings as an official part of their FBI duties, or making these posts for their own reasons? I know that the screenshots imply that they made these posts while performing their duties, but well I'm at work right now when I'm making this HN comment, and that doesn't mean that my employer instructed me to make this comment.

Is this sanctioned forum sliding, or just a bored government employee shitposting when they're supposed to be working?

[292355744930110]

Why would screenshots of his personal browsing be used for the court case?

[mistermann]

The response of the agent's superiors might leak some information as to what is actually going on behind the scenes, if they do respond. But then, any such response should be taken with a massive grain of salt due to the fact that all of this is part of multi-domain operations conducted by the US government and military.

[salawat]

Once again, just leaving this here.

https://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm

It has been posted before, but a day can't seem to go by without new people being taken by surprise that this type of thing happens.

Information is power, and there are many people in high places that realize it. A modest investment in keeping an eye on your opponent, and ruffling feathers on line is the new border skirmish or airspace invasion.

If you have an odd feeling in the back of your head that someone or something is actively making it more difficult to discuss something without disruption, distraction or usurpation of the public forum; odds are that is exactly what is happening. If it isn't your platform, and it's big enough to attract a large audience, then it becomes increasingly likely somebody else has been bothered to implement some sort of filter.

Is it good, bad, or indifferent? That I leave to the reader's sensibilities. However, in my opinion, there is a growing trend brought about by a tendency for increased centralization where this type of "forum engineering" is increasingly valuable to nation-state actors. Be careful out there folks, and double check your information consumption. The Signal can't be stopped, but it can be made hard to find through all the equivocation.

[dooglius]

...or the agent isn't the person who took the screenshot. Screencaps of deleted threads are common on chans and it's more likely they got one of those than the original.

[s9w]

If you dig into other discussions about this (the chans were all over this last night) then there are other images that show entire discussions being faked by single IDs. It doesn't guarantee the FBI was behind it themselves, but the evidence is manufactured.

[s9w]

My own post on this was deleted in less than two minutes (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20200354). Hopefully this will stay.

This is extremely important as this topic was cheered on very recently (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20186775). As it turns out the "evidence" was bullshit.

[hannasanarion]

What "evidence" does this contradict?

[qazpot]

There is certainly a strain of leftist totalitarianism prevalent on HN, which suppresses any news not in sync with their "we good, they bad" world view.

[cwtpk]

It's a tradition in irc to call someone a "fed". This just legitimates it, :P

[faissaloo]

We just call 'em glows

[fallingfrog]

“CIA Supervisor: Jesus Fucking Christ. What did we learn, Palmer?

Palmer: I don't know sir.

CIA Supervisor: I don't fucking know either. I guess we learned not to do it again. I'm fucked if I know what we did.

Palmer: Yes sir, it's hard to say.”

-Cohen Brothers, Burn After Reading

[ForHackernews]

...or they got the screenshots from somebody else posting in the thread who tipped them off.

If an FBI agent introduces a bag of coke as evidence, that doesn't mean it's her cocaine.

[yasp]

If the agent didn't retrieve the screenshots himself when he easily could have wouldn't that be easily dismissable evidence since the screen grabs could have been falsified in some way?

[marsrover]

Not exactly related but how often do you think some form of radicalization happens due to these forums? I don’t visit so I am not sure but it seems like these places are a breeding ground for violence.

[s9w]

Much unlike the others.

Twitter: https://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/huffpost-editor-says-new-y...

facebook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Chicago_torture_incident

[akhilcacharya]

I would personally pin the blame on the YouTube recommendation algorithm and the Chans first due to their natural tendency for extremism, even if some of it or even most of it is ironic.

The fact that the Tree of Life shooter posted to Gab before his attack is no accident. He wanted to radicalize others.

[rexpop]

What you're speculating is well-documented researchers, and painfully obvious to certain folks of colloquial familiarity with the growth of Internet culture. The best "crash course" I can offer you are two PDFs of research on the subject.

Not only do these forums radicalize participants to violent extremism, their ideology proliferates into, and influences mainstream media, which in turn begins to draw mainstream audiences towards radical violence.[1] This shift in public discourse could have devastating consequences for peace and the stability of our society. There are no more serious threats to civilization, in my estimation.

It's important, also, to remember that these are deliberately amplified propaganda campaigns, not "organic" or popular reactionism.

This radicalization is bought and paid for.[2]

> influencers have effectively propagandized to viewers and helped radicalize young people (and normalize bigoted ideas) in the process. In this ecosystem, a range of mainstream conservative and libertarian influencers, self-help gurus, and gaming streamers can ultimately act as gateways to more extremist content.

1) https://datasociety.net/pubs/oh/DataAndSociety_MediaManipula...

2) https://datasociety.net/output/alternative-influence/

[anon209e9c64]

I've always suspected the chans were full of feds, the toxic speech functions as obfuscation allowing for open discussion of sensitive subjects.

[0815test]

Didn't Qanon explicitly self-identify as a "fed"? So it's not exactly news that feds too like to shitpost on the *chans - arguably, they can shitpost better than anyone!

[RickJWagner]

I miss the days of a squeeky-clean FBI (at least the image.)

These days we seem to be getting the X-Files version of the bureau.

[jammygit]

On the topic of fake news and disinformation, what would one do to determine whether this post is disinformation or fake news? Most of the sources cited are to websites I’m unfamiliar with.

Is there an easy way to verify?

[chayesfss]

Wonder how many are posting in this thread

[dzhiurgis]

I feel some of the agencies mentioned will comment here as well...

Kinda feel someone already did...

[qazpot]

It seems like Russia is USA's boogeyman. Every time, the establishment want people to believe some narrative they use Russia. Conservatives used Russia and communism throughout the cold war. Surprisingly, so called leftists are doing the same from 2016 onwards, blaming russian influence because their choice of candidate did not win.

[notfromhere]

You don't need to be a leftist to think the Russian government played a role in influencing the U.S. presidential election when it engaged in a hacking campaign against a candidate.

[coupdetaco]

It’s to sell helicopters. The oil guys like Russia a whole lot

[trpc]

Taxpayers money well spent

[mikemoka]

All those Putin memes you might find are not accidental either and came earlier..Russia has a long history of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_web_brigades

[Valmar]

Some classic Whataboutism right here. Smells like a desperate attempt at deflection to me.

"FBI? But - but - Russia!"

[hallihax]

It's been pretty obvious from day 1 that the whole xenophobic anti-Russian scaremongering was being inauthentic and confected.

It's all just noise. There's no substance to any of it - just vague circumstantial nonsense and wild, unsupported allegations.

[Miner49er]

Just because the US is doing this doesn't mean that Russia isn't doing the same. There is evidence they have done it before [1], plus, why wouldn't they? It's a cheap way and easy way to spread propaganda.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html